The mystery surrounding Apple's leadership succession plan, presumably known only to Apple's board of directors, has made many shareholders uneasy. Jobs, a cancer survivor, went on his third indefinite medical leave of absence in January. During each sick leave, the company's day-to-day operations have been handed to COO Tim Cook.

"Tim Cook has argued that the lack of information about succession was a competitive advantage, and historically most corporations don't announce succession plans for that exact reason," said Apple analyst Tim Bajarin, CEO of Creative Strategies. "Given the fact that Tim Cook and his team have already proven to be extremely capable of running Apple, this issue really became a non-starter question."

The proposal to force Apple to publicize, or at least acknowledge, a succession plan was submitted by minority shareholder Central Laborers Pension Fund in August; the idea gained steam in January when Jobs went on sick leave.

In a January press release, another minority shareholder Laborers International Union argued, "We're concerned to hear the news about Steve Jobs' health and hope to see him return to full duties soon. However, this news demonstrates the need for Apple to do well by its shareholders, including our members' pension funds."

Apple's board of directors have long opposed the idea of releasing a succession plan, saying it would only help its competitors. In a proxy statement in January, Apple said publicly discussing successors would "undermine the company's efforts to recruit and retain executives" and "[invite] competitors to recruit high-value executives away from Apple. Furthermore, executives who are not identified as potential successors may choose to voluntarily leave the Company."

The second shareholder proposal for adopting a majority vote for its board directors was a key victory for pension fund and major shareholder Calpers, Reuters said.

Sara Yin is a junior analyst in the Software, Internet, and Networking group at PCmag.com, pouring most of her energy into app testing and security matters at Security Watch with Neil Rubenking. She lies awake at night pondering the state of mobile security (half-true).
Prior to joining PCMag.com, Sara spent five years reporting for publications in New York City (Huffington Post), Hong Kong (South China Morning Post), and Singapore (Campaign Asia, Men's Health).
Follow her on Twitter at @SecurityWatch and @sarapyin, or contact her the...
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